Posted on Oct 5, 2022 in Science
Today’s stories include ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Planets like Earth May Make Up Only 1% of Potentially Habitable Worlds to All Land on Earth is Merging Into a New Supercontinent to Why Does Time Go Forwards, Not Backwards?, and much more.
‘Pale blue dot’ planets like Earth may make up only 1% of potentially habitable worlds, reports Keith Cooper for Space.com–“We may need to look for “pale yellow dots” instead.”
All Land on Earth is Merging Into a New Supercontinent. “It will only take 300 million years,” reports Futurism about the new land mass, Amasia, closing the Pacific Ocean in the process.
Discoveries about Ancient Human Evolution Win 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine –Svante Pääbo’s work on sequencing the DNA of Neandertals and Denisovans, which won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, revealed surprising interbreeding among human species, reports Scientific American.
Quantum entanglement wins 2022’s Nobel Physics Prize-The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.”
Quantum entanglement: the ‘spooky’ science behind physics Nobel, reports Daniel Lawler for Phys.org. –“Even people with degrees in physics struggle to understand it—and some who do still find parts “hard to swallow,” said Chris Phillips, a physicist at Imperial College London.”
Trio who proved quantum mechanics is really weird—and useful—honored, reports Science. New laureates aid groundwork for entire field of quantum information science.
‘We found a planet that shows us what the Earth will be like in five billion years’–Astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger is searching for biomarkers on worlds beyond our Solar System, reports El Pais. ““It’s fascinating to me that in our galaxy alone – the Milky Way – there may be 40 billion habitable planets. And the universe has billions of galaxies. I’m often asked whether there is other life in the universe, and with these kinds of numbers, it would a big surprise if we don’t find it.”
2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded for a New Way of Building Molecules–Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless share the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering an easy way to “click” molecular building blocks together, reports Josh Fischman for Scientific American.
Fireball from Solar System’s edge isn’t what astronomers expected, reports Science. Rocky object suggests distant cloud of comets also contains asteroids.
Here’s how life on Earth might have formed out of thin air and water–When droplets of water react with the air, life-starting things may happen, reports PopSci.”The origins of how life on Earth arose remains a deep existential and scientific mystery. It’s long been theorized that our planet’s plentiful oceans could hold key to the secret. A new study from scientists at Purdue University could advance that idea one step further.”
Is theoretical physics broken? Or is it just hard?–When you don’t have enough clues to bring your detective story to a close, you should expect that your educated guesses will all be wrong, writes Ethan Siegel for Big Think.
New study seeks to explain the Mandela Effect – the bizarre phenomenon of shared false memories –Fiona Broome remembered Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s (he didn’t). Oddly, many people had the same false memory, reports Big Think.
Climate change could turn some blue lakes to green or brown–“In the first global tally of lake color, researchers estimate that roughly one-third of Earth’s lakes are blue. But, should average summer air temperatures rise by a few degrees, some of those crystal waters could turn a murky green or brown, the team reports in the Sept. 28 Geophysical Research Letters.”
Why does time go forwards, not backwards? asks BBC Future. “The arrow of time began its journey at the Big Bang, and when the Universe eventually dies there will be no more future and no past. In the meantime, what is it that drives time ever onward?”
Curated by the Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
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